M.C. Escher

All M.C. Escher works (c) Cordon Art B.V.-Baarn-the Netherlands. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

REPTILES lithograph, 1943, 33.5 x 38.5 cm

The life cycle of the little alligator. amid all kinds of objects, a drawing book lies open, and the drawing on view is a mosaic of reptilian figures in three contrasting shades. Evidently one of them has tired of lying flat and rigid amongst his fellows, so he puts one plastic-looking leg over the edge of the book, wrenches himself free and launches out into real life. He climbs up the back of the book on zoology and works his laborious way up the slipperry slope of a setsquare to the highest point of his existence. Then after a quick snort, tired but fulfilled, he goes downhill again, via an ashtray, To the leval surface, to that flat drawing paper, and meekly rejoins his erstwhile friends, taking up once more his function as an element of surface-division.
The little book of job has nothing to do with the bible, but contains belgian cigarette papers.

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